at the Maison Alix, under the designation
of Henri Glaire, and in the character of an artist in house-decoration.
The circumstances of his life in childhood and boyhood had led to his
being almost safe from recognition as a man at Lyons; and, indeed, all
the people on the _ci-devant_ visiting-list of the chateau had been
pretty nearly killed off, in the noble and patriotic ardor of the
revolutionary times.

The ancient Chateau de Senanges was proudly placed near the summit of
the "Holy Hill," and had suffered terrible depredations when the church
at Fourvieres was sacked, and the shrine desecrated with that ingenious
impiety which is characteristic of the French; but it still retained
somewhat of its former heavy grandeur. The chateau was much too large
for the needs, tastes, or ambition of its present owner, who was too
wise, if even he had been of an ostentatious disposition, not to have
sedulously resisted its promptings. The jealousy of the nation of
brothers was easily excited, and departure from simplicity and frugality
was apt to be commented upon by domiciliary visits, and the eager
imposition of fanciful fines. That portion of the vast building occupied
by Prosper Alix and the _citoyenne_ Berthe, his daughter, presented an
appearance of well-to-do comfort and modest ease, which contrasted with
the grandiose proportions and the elaborate decorations of the wide
corridors, huge flat staircases, and lofty panelled apartments. The
_avocat_ and his daughter lived quietly in the old place, hoping, after
a general fashion, for better times, but not finding the present very
bad; the father becoming day by day more pleasant with his bargain, the
daughter growing fonder of the great house, and the noble _bocages_, of
the scrappy little vineyards, struggling for existence on the sunny
hill-side, and the place where the famous shrine had been. They had
done it much damage; they had parted its riches among them; the once
ever-open doors were shut, and the worn flags were untrodden; but
nothing could degrade it, nothing could destroy what had been, in the
mind of Berthe Alix, who was as devout as her father was unconcernedly
unbelieving. Berthe was wonderfully well educated for a Frenchwoman of
that period, and surprisingly handsome for a Frenchwoman of any. Not too
tall to offend the taste of her compatriots, and not too short to be
dignified and graceful, she had a symmetrical figure, and a small,
well-poised head, whose p